Friday, August 12, 2011

From the sunlight streaming in to our tent, we knew it was time to wake up and get exploring. Acadia is a huge park, so we asked a park ranger for some hiking advice. He gave us a path that involved hiking a trail over two mountain peaks.

We started our way up Mt. Huguenaut with a good example of rock paving.

After crossing Huguenaut, we made our way up Mt. Champlain, "Cliffhanger" style.

Made it!

Exploring the peak of Champlain

Another one of those amazing Acadia views

Our ranger buddy suggested we take a different trail down the mountain, doubling back to follow a new trail around the face of the mountain, then finally meeting up with a fourth trail to climb down. He warned us that there was a lot of tough terrain, and he was absolutely right. It was very strenuous, and really, really fun.

We knew there was going to be a lot of bouldering on our way down, so we put on our FiveFingers

Based on all the questions we answered, we should be spokespeople for Vibram!

Another, much steeper example of rock paving

The last 500 feet down involved climbing over, under, and straight down huge boulders.

Taking in one last view of the ocean

After a hike like that, we definitely needed a shower - luckily Acadia has coin-operated showers in the park. $2 in quarters bought you 4 minutes of wonderful hot water... we've never showered as efficiently as we did today. We got ourselves dressed, and on the recommendation of Roadfood.com, we drove out to Beal's Lobster Pound for authentic Maine lobster rolls (and an authentic Maine blueberry sodee pop).

It was a long wait, but it was worth it (as usual)

Emily is a total Maine-iac

Yes!

We headed back to our campsite for dessert - a few toasted (or burnt, if that’s the way you like them) marshmallows over the fire. We then settled into our tent to discuss our plans to come back to Acadia, because there’s so much we didn’t get to see (Thunderhole!)